COVID-19 Response Charity Project “Art Can Save Us”
“Art Can Save Us,” organized by a group of volunteer art collectors, launches for a limited period from Saturday, May 16, 2020.
The initiative is run primarily by the <Art Can Save Us Secretariat>, led by two art collectors — Ayako Terai and Ami Wolf.
To raise donations for organizations combating COVID-19 in Japan, works donated free of charge by 17 artists who endorse the project’s mission will be sold as high-quality giclée prints on an online site. *With additional participating artists, the final lineup totals 20.
All proceeds from the project — the full sales amount, minus expenses — will be donated to the National Center for Global Health and Medicine, an organization combating COVID-19 in Japan. *The total donation amount will be reported on the site at a later date.
Organizing Art Collectors
Messages from the two organizing art collectors follow.
Message from Ayako Terai
I believe art has the power to change the world — and to change it for the better.
Right now, countries around the world have lost their daily lives to COVID-19.
I want to convey the power of art to people who have lost their emotional anchor in this extraordinary time. My heartfelt respect goes to the artists who endorsed and joined this project.
Message from Ami Wolf
With museums and galleries closed, I feel every day just how wonderful it is that we can still appreciate and enjoy art at home.
And I want to deliver even a bit of that power of art to the medical professionals fighting COVID-19 and the people supporting them. That’s the feeling that led me to launch this project.
My deepest thanks to all the artists who endorsed the project and to everyone who contributed.
Daisuke Miyazu, who advised and supported the project from the sidelines, also sent a message.
Message from Daisuke Miyazu
Art is nothing other than thinking for yourself and taking action.
If any of the artists on the list catches your eye, don’t overthink it — just enjoy them at home.
Works for Sale
The works for sale come as A3-size giclée prints, in a limited number.
Each artist: 25 prints, hand-signed, at a flat price of 15,000 yen (tax and domestic shipping included)
The giclée prints are produced by Atelier Matsudaira (Koto-ku, Tokyo) at a charity price.
To faithfully reproduce the original’s worldview, the giclée printing involves repeated adjustments of brightness and color, yielding a high-resolution, richly textured, high-quality finish — one that is highly archival and recognized worldwide as a fine-art medium.
Participating Artists
Yusuke Asai (new work) / Chika Osaka / Shunichi Oda (new work) / Mari Katayama (*added) / Makiko Kudo / Umi Kumano / Erika Kobayashi / Kazuya Sakamoto / Asae Soya (new work, *added) / Shusaku Takaoka / Koji Nakazono / Tomoko Nagai / HAL KUZUYA / Yuichi Hirako / Yusuke Hanai (new work) / M!DOR! / Mote Sinabel Aoki / Hiroshi Mori (new work) / Hiroka Yamashita (*added) / LY (new work) *Japanese syllabary order
Yusuke Asai
Born in Tokyo in 1981.
Alongside his acrylic and oil work in the studio, Asai has produced paintings freely across a wide range of settings and materials in various projects, using earth from each location, masking tape, dust, road-marking white lines, wheat flour, deer blood, and more.
In recent years he has drawn attention for large-scale murals, many of them over 10 meters wide.
<Artist’s comment>
Good places, bad places, nothing places
Good times, bad times, blank-minded times
When I think of life as dwelling in all of them, I believe every place holds a form that should grow (be made) there.
So I take a deep breath, draw in the air of this place right now, and try to squeeze something out from my fingertips little by little.
Even when I move carefully, unease and doubt are always there — but drawing lets me measure that gap, and the distance between me and the world feels a little smaller. Every day repeats, layers, connects, is born, drifts apart.
The world is always beautiful, and sometimes it shines.
Chika Osaka
Born in Tokyo in 1984. Completed the MA program in Painting (Printmaking) at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts, in 2011. Awards include the Salon de Printemps Prize at the Tokyo University of the Arts Graduation Exhibition (2009), the Atsuhiko Shima Judge’s Prize at Shell Art Award 2010 (2010), the Grand Prix at the 4th Adachi UKIYO-E Award (2013), an Honorable Mention at VOCA 2014 (2014), the Jerwood Printmaking Today Prize at the London Original Print Fair (2019), and the One Art Award at One Art Taipei 2020 (2020), among many others. Major exhibitions include Shell Art Award Artist Selection 2012 (SAS) at The National Art Center, Tokyo (2012); “What Is a Print? — Crossing Boundaries” at Ichihara Lakeside Museum (2014); the 2nd PATinKyoto Kyoto Print Triennale 2016 at Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art (2016); and “Around the Lithograph Stone” at Musashino Art University Museum (2018).
<Artist’s comment>
Translating what is happening across the world right now into a new work in real time was difficult for me, and I kept asking myself what I could do as an artist. I decided to join because I thought that perhaps some of the work I’ve already made might be of use. I’d be glad if I can be of even the smallest help to the medical workers who go to work each day amid anxiety and fear.
Shunichi Oda
Born in 1990. Moved to the UK in 2012 and studied photography on his own. Went independent in 2017. Joined symphonic in 2019. Photographs a broad range of subjects, mostly people, for magazines and advertising. As art, during the state of emergency he released the “Night Order” series, shot in the streets of Tokyo at night. Draws inspiration from his relationship with society, aiming for “Socio-Photography” that moves the mind and prompts action.
<Artist’s comment>
On May 6, I went out into the streets of Yurakucho. Against the emptiness of the deserted drinking district, I saw light dancing across the walls. Almost possessed, I kept clicking the shutter. Then, like an image emerging from film, a “cradle of light” that tenderly holds us appeared. Surely we have been kept alive, held gently by the nighttime streets — that’s what the light was telling me. I hope this work becomes, even in a small way, a “cradle” that tenderly holds your heart and society. Art can Save us.
Mari Katayama *Added artist
Major exhibitions include: the 58th Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy, 2019); “Broken Heart” (White Rainbow, London, UK, 2019); “Photographs of Innocence and Experience — New Photography from Japan, Vol. 14” (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2017); “On the Way Home” (Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Gunma, Japan, 2017); “Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice” (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2016); and Aichi Triennale 2013 (Nayabashi venue, Aichi, Japan, 2013).
Major publications include “GIFT” (United Vagabonds, 2019). Received the New Artist Award at the 35th Higashikawa Prize, Photo Town Higashikawa (2019), and the 45th Ihei Kimura Photography Award (2020). Formed KATAMARI UNION with Schoko Nishida and Amanda Ling-Ning Lo in 2020.
<Artist’s comment>
In 2016 I made several works with Amabie as the subject.
When my daughter was still in my womb, I was thinking about how to come to terms with my daily-changing body and with the world outside.
Now, in the middle of the pandemic, Amabie is turning up everywhere.
I would be glad if my Amabie also reaches into someone’s life.
Makiko Kudo
Born in Aomori Prefecture in 1978. Graduated from the Oil Painting Department, Joshibi University of Art and Design, in 2002.
Now based in Kanagawa. In Makiko Kudo’s paintings, things she encounters in daily life and dreamlike imagined worlds fuse into strange inner landscapes. She has held solo exhibitions and joined group shows in Japan and abroad.
Major group exhibitions include “ICONOCLASTS” at the Saatchi Gallery, London (2017); “The New International 2014” at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2014); and “Winter Garden” at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (2009).
Public collections include the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, UC Berkeley Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Saatchi Collection, while in Japan her works are held by the Japan Foundation and the Takahashi Collection. Monograph: “Turning” (Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2012).
<Artist’s comment>
I felt that in a crisis where saving lives is the top priority, painters aren’t of much use — so seeing this kind of idea and follow-through is amazing. I’d be glad to help even a little.
Umi Kumano
Born in Fukui Prefecture in 1983. Now based in Kanagawa. Graduated from the Ceramics course, Department of Crafts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts, in 2007. Resided in Berlin as an overseas researcher of the Fukui Prefecture Grant and the Yoshino Gypsum Art Foundation from 2014 to 2016. Solo exhibitions include “Unexpected Stories” at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, London (2016). Looks at the incomprehensible, chaotic real world through an everyday lens, and works to create pieces that cross cultures and religions as social metaphors.
<Artist’s comment>
I feel we have entered a new era unlike any before. Medical workers fighting an unknown virus to save lives, the people supporting the economy while facing social anxiety, and those of us in the arts — we need to cooperate to preserve our precious culture and get through this crisis together. Only by each carrying our own role can we protect our world. If my work can be even a small help, I’d be glad.
Erika Kobayashi
Books include the novels “Trinity, Trinity, Trinity” and “Breakfast with Madame Curie” (nominated for the 27th Mishima Prize and the 151st Akutagawa Prize; both Shueisha), the comic “Light Child 1, 2, 3” (Little More), which traces the scientific history of “radioactivity,” and the collection “Unforgettable” (Seidosha).
Major exhibitions include the solo show “Wild Bird Forest 1F” (Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo, 2019) and the group show “Who Is Speaking? — Literature Latent in Contemporary Art” (The National Art Center, Tokyo, Tokyo, 2019).
<Artist’s comment>
I can’t be directly involved in medicine myself, but I’d be very glad if donating a work can help even a little.
And I hope the time spent at home with the work brings a little more joy to whoever has it.
Kazuya Sakamoto
Born in Tottori Prefecture in 1985. Completed the MA program in Contemporary Expression at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Nagoya University of the Arts, in 2012. Dispatched to Taipei under the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Overseas Dispatch Program from 2017 to 2018. Through his hobby of keeping aquatic plants, Sakamoto found parallels between components of an ecosystem and the environment of modern society and his own life, and takes plants as his subject. He is expanding his activities primarily across Asia.
<Artist’s comment>
Thank you to all the medical workers giving everything on the front lines. There is no night that doesn’t end, but if art can be even a small help during this longer-than-expected night, I’d be glad. I believe art has that power. I sincerely hope the coronavirus is contained as soon as possible.
Asae Soya *Added artist
Received a PhD (Fine Arts) from the Graduate School of Tokyo University of the Arts. Works across both painting and installation. Awards include the Grand Prix at the Showa Shell Sekiyu Contemporary Art Award, the VOCA Prize at VOCA, and the Yokohama Culture Award. Held solo exhibitions at Art Tower Mito, Shiseido Gallery, and others. Participated in group exhibitions at The National Art Center, Tokyo; Sezon Museum of Modern Art; and Fuchu Art Museum. Created public art and exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Xi’an, and elsewhere. Resided in New York as an Overseas Researcher of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and in Basel as a TOKAS dispatched creator. Monograph: “Asae Soya: Sky Color” (Seigensha).
<Artist’s comment>
“Cherry blossoms — on a day without hometown, without parents”
Precisely under these conditions, I started a collaborative project called “Painting on Ten Haiku My Mother Composed,” to give shape to feelings for people who matter that I’d seen anew, and to content I’d overlooked. This painting is for the haiku above.
Cherry blossoms bloomed again this year, indifferent to our confusion. I painted that scene — beautiful, yes, but also evoking loss and release — as a love letter to a lost everyday, with a prayer for recovery.
Shusaku Takaoka
Graphic designer.
Went viral abroad for his Instagram works, in which he collages figures from famous paintings — Mona Lisa, Van Gogh, and so on — into contemporary style. Currently has 340,000 Instagram followers.
His outstanding sense has drawn attention from the fashion and street scenes, and he creates works in response to their requests. He was among the first to make a “wash your hands” appeal in response to COVID-19, and this work was added to the huge billboards for “Stylist Shibutsu” (curated by Koichiro Yamamoto) and “ENNOY” in front of Gakugeidaigaku Station, quickly becoming popular. He does not usually sell his works; making them available here for the first time was possible only because it is a charity project.
<Artist’s comment>
The idea came to me suddenly.
When I gave it form, the result was a piece full of energy.
And I hoped this work could give people around the world a lift.
May this prayer reach many.
Koji Nakazono
Born in Kanagawa in 1989. Passed away in July 2015 at age 25. Graduated from the Oil Painting course, Department of Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts, in 2012.
During his lifetime he held solo exhibitions at Tomio Koyama Gallery (2013) and at 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery (2014), and joined “Whereabouts of Painting” at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2014). After his death, “Koji Nakazono: Outer Edge — The Landscape I Wanted to See” was held at the Yokosuka Museum of Art in 2018. Outside Japan, his work has been shown at “Japanorama: New Vision of JAPAN from 1970” (Centre Pompidou-Metz, France, 2017); the 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art: “Clouds⇄Forests” (New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia, 2017); and “DESIRE: A REVISION FROM THE 20TH CENTURY TO THE DIGITAL AGE” (Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland, 2019). His work is held in the public collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.
Tomoko Nagai
Tomoko Nagai was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1982.
Graduated from Aichi University of the Arts in 2006 and now works in Tokyo. She held a solo exhibition at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery’s Project N in 2008 and joined VOCA 2010. Overseas exhibitions include “Future Pass — From Asia to the World” (Palazzo Mangilli Valmarana, Venice, 2011); “Pathos and Small Narratives” (Gana Art Center, Seoul, 2011); and “JAPANCONGO” (Le Magasin, Grenoble, 2011).
She is also active well beyond museums and galleries — projects painting outdoor pools for nursery school children, and providing artwork for the opening title and in-show art of NHK Educational TV’s “Tokidoki Meimei” (from 2010). She has also designed covers for Hairi Katagiri’s “Thanks for the Ticket Tonight, Too” (Kinema Junposha, 2010) and Maha Harada’s “Travel Shop Okaeri” (Shueisha Bunko, 2014). Her first full monograph, “Thousands of Finches,” was published in 2017. Her work is held by the Takahashi Collection (Japan), the Olbricht Collection (Germany), the Zabludowicz Collection (UK), and the Jumex Collection (Switzerland / USA), among others.
<Artist’s comment>
Thank you for the chance to join such a wonderful project. I’m delighted to raise donations in an artistic, art-appropriate way, and to be able to connect with everyone involved in the “Stay Home” style.
Yusuke Hanai
Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1978. Strongly influenced by 1950s–60s counterculture, he has built a distinctive style that fuses a Japanese aesthetic with American retro illustration. He has exhibited in the US, France, Australia, Brazil, Taiwan, the UK, and elsewhere, and to date has provided artwork for VANS, NIXON, BEAMS, and other brands, expanding his activities at home and abroad.
<Artist’s comment>
The future we arrive at is unknown, but I hope it’s a better one. And I’d like to express my thanks and respect to the medical workers on the front lines fighting this unknown threat, COVID-19.
HAL KUZUYA
Spent his school years abroad and there discovered the appeal of photography.
Active in advertising and portraiture. His portraits, built on the intimate distance that comes from mutual trust with his subject, are known for drawing out a person’s essential appeal and true face. In personal work, he mainly presents nude portraits and photographs of plants, using words and images together to create work meant to be a song of support for women.
<Artist’s comment>
This series, which I’ve been shooting since around 2010, is a set of portraits of plants that stand in for people trapped in the city. Placed in glass cases, given name tags, and yet these plants live freely, resiliently, each with its own character, growing into whatever shape they will. That is unbearably endearing to me, and I photograph them while talking with them, almost as if with a person. In the spring of 2020, when the over-developed city has trapped its people, I picked this work because I felt that we too are seeking the light, doing our best to live in this moment. I believe that people, like these plants, are living each in their own way, doing their beautiful best in the here and now.
Yuichi Hirako
Born in Okayama Prefecture in 1982, now based in Tokyo. Graduated from Fine Art, Painting, Wimbledon College of Art, UK, in 2006. Continues to present work energetically outside Japan as well — in Taiwan, China, Korea, the Netherlands, Denmark, Singapore, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Working across a broad range of media — painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, sound performance — his theme is the coexistence of plants and humans, and the questions about the relationship that emerges there. Through his practice he asks after the meaning of “nature.”
<Artist’s comment>
No one, myself included, thought a situation this terrible would ever come. Watching the news from around the world, I sometimes wondered whether making work in a time like this had any meaning, and honestly the brush moves less easily than before. That’s precisely why I felt I had to act. Art cannot end a pandemic, and it cannot directly save lives. But I believe in the possibilities of the work I make! I’m betting on the power art creates. May it help someone!
M!DOR!
Born in Yokohama in 1986.
Began her career as a collage artist in 2010.
She is expanding her activities into window displays for LUMINE, the jacket for official Higedandism, Perfume calendars, magazine pages such as VOGUE JAPAN, book cover illustrations, and brand collaborations.
<Artist’s comment>
I believe art has the power to enrich people’s hearts at any time.
I too have received power from all kinds of art up to now.
In this situation, hoping my work can be of some help to something or someone, and out of gratitude to the medical workers giving their all every day, I decided to join.
Mote Sinabel Aoki
Photographer.
Grew up in Tokyo and Los Angeles, and studied architecture and art at universities in the US and Paris.
Since the publication of his photo book “Nowhere” in 1998, he has continued taking photographs as a form of personal expression. Alongside his work as a creative director, art director, and film director, he also produces art photography — pieces that fascinate viewers with the dynamic vision hidden within silence and their delicate, exquisite beauty — which he has shown at exhibitions in Paris and Tokyo. He is currently based in Paris and Tokyo.
<Artist’s comment>
Perhaps we have already stepped into the light of the next evolution.
Each time, awakening and light arrive.
We have created and recreated from an absolute natural balance.
Humanity has overcome many hardships to evolve.
Guided by the light, I want to share this photograph in the hope that it may become a trigger for your own awakening.
Hiroshi Mori
Hiroshi Mori was born in Tokyo in 1977. Completed the MA program in Oil Painting Techniques and Materials at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts, in 2013. Works through parody — for example, translating the traditional gold background of religious paintings into a manga-style surface via the latest UV printing — combining existing imagery from classical and Pop Art masterpieces, and from anime, manga, and games, to set up “mischief” that questions what “originality” means in art.
<Artist’s comment>
Who could have imagined the world would become this? It’s like being stuck in a long, dark tunnel with no way out. But I believe there is an exit, and a bright world waiting. My gratitude and respect to the medical workers who fight day after day on the front lines without giving up.
Hiroka Yamashita *Added artist
Born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1991.
Returned to Japan after working out of New York. Her subjects are drawn from things sung about in waka poems, human feelings likened to nature, discovering the unknown, someone’s memory, the connection between nature and people, longing, loving — everyday scenes that hold all of these.
She combines the lineage of Western painting with characteristic Japanese-painting compositions, pursuing a Japanese sense of Ephemerality.
<Artist’s comment>
Following my project at THE CLUB, I’m honored to take part in this kind of support again. I want to keep imagining the suffering of someone I’ve never met.
LY
Born in Tokyo. Painter. Uses black, white, and over thirty shades of gray to depict townscapes she encountered abroad and landscapes she has imagined since childhood. In those landscapes wanders “LUV,” a monster onto which she projects her own feelings and thoughts. She has painted at art schools since age seven; in high school she encountered street art and was drawn in by the appeal of murals and graffiti. She has left murals in Tokyo and around the world, working to paint the perfect landscape she imagines onto street walls. She also creates with the aim that her murals and street art take root locally and become a means of communication with people through the work.
<Artist’s comment>
I’d be glad if it becomes one of the joys of being at home.
A closing message from the organizing members.
Our deepest thanks to the medical workers facing COVID-19 and to everyone supporting our daily lives. We pray for the swift end of the coronavirus in Japan and around the world.
Overview
Art Can Save Us
Official site: https://artcansaveus.com
Instagram: @artcansaveus2020
Participating artists: Yusuke Asai / Chika Osaka / Shunichi Oda / Mari Katayama / Makiko Kudo / Umi Kumano / Erika Kobayashi / Kazuya Sakamoto / Asae Soya / Shusaku Takaoka / Koji Nakazono / Tomoko Nagai / HAL KUZUYA / Yuichi Hirako / Yusuke Hanai / M!DOR! / Mote Sinabel Aoki / Hiroshi Mori / Hiroka Yamashita / LY *Japanese syllabary order, 20 artists total
Format: giclée prints, limited to 25 signed prints per artist
Price: 15,000 yen each (tax and domestic shipping included)
Sales period: Saturday, May 16, 2020, site launch at noon / sales open at 8:00 p.m. — through Sunday, May 31 at 11:59 p.m.
Organizer: Art Can Save Us Secretariat (Ayako Terai, Ami Wolf)
Giclée print cooperation: Atelier Matsudaira (Koto-ku, Tokyo)
